


Last Stop

by ritsuko



Series: Rainbow [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Compliant, M/M, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Post-Endgame, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-15 15:21:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18672343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ritsuko/pseuds/ritsuko
Summary: It's the end of the line. But that doesn't mean that Bucky is happy to be here.





	Last Stop

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS 
> 
> IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN END GAME AND WANT TO SAVE YOURSELF FROM SPOILERS, DO NOT READ
> 
> SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS
> 
>  
> 
> (also, this was the only part of the movie that I reallllly had a problem with.)

“You first,” he tells Sam, because he already knows. He knew before Steve even stepped on the transport pad, even before Tony Stark’s funeral. 

Because Steve had told him.

Bucky had kept his face a perfect mask, bittersweet understanding that his friend was tired. That his friend was done. 

That Steve, as much as he could ever delude himself, would never be more than a brother to him. 

It seemed fate was content to constantly rip the two of them away from each other. 

Maybe it’s better this way. 

Sam walks closer to the figure next to the lake, and he can see every inch of his Steve in that posture, in the shell of someone he knew he wouldn’t know anymore. He didn’t even know if he could even bear to look at that wizened face without breaking down. 

After everything, after falling from the train, HYDRA corrupting him, being hunted down, disappearing, not even getting to grow old with his best friend?

The only love of his life?

He sees Sam look back, a mixture of shock and awe on his face. Of course he’d thought Steve would choose Bucky. The brunette just smiles tersely and nods. 

He hadn’t wanted it. 

He hadn’t wanted any of it. 

But he hadn’t the heart to stop his best friend from living out his dreams. Not after everything they’d been through. 

And if Peggy was Steve’s dream-

Sam walks back up to Bucky, grin faltering slightly. “You okay, man?”

_No._

“Yup.” He replies and briskly walks to the bench. 

He can feel those old blues on him, assessing. Bucky can’t bring himself to look up. He just stares out at the water, so calm and peaceful, when everything inside him feels like breaking glass. For a moment, he wishes he could just slip beneath the surface and hide from this reunion.

Minutes pass before Steve says a word. “Hey, jerk.”

“Hey, punk.” His voice is barely a whisper, and he can feel his mask slipping. 

“You okay?” Steve asks, and Bucky wants to scream. Of course it’s not. 

“Yeah, at least I’m not gonna have to worry about you getting yourself into any trouble. Unless someone takes the last Jell-O at your nursing home.”

Steve laughs, a happy, musical sound. He’s missed it for over seventy years, he’s missed it for the last five minutes. 

“He’s gonna need your help.”

“You know I have goats back in Wakanda right?” He complains, and he can feel the old man raising an eyebrow at him. Bucky sighs. “We already talked about this. I got him.” 

There’s a few more moments of silence before he feels something nudge his hand, and when he looks down, Steve is holding his. 

“I’m sorry, Buck.”

Bucky’s breath hitches in his throat. “For what? You did enough for the world, Steve. You deserved a little happiness of your own.” He tries to smile up at his friend, but he knows it looks more like a grimace. 

“For never realizing how you really felt about me.”

Bucky’s blood goes cold. Of all the things that he ever expected Steve to say to him, that was not it. His friend’s eyes are slightly misty, but not in the least bit regretful. 

“What are you talking about?” Bucky manages, words feeling like chalk in his mouth. He didn't want him to know. He never wanted him to know.

“Peggy told me. She said she knew even back during the war. And you, well, the other you that we rescued, did.”

Bucky can’t help it, his face falls. “The. . . Other me.” He states blankly. 

“I couldn’t just let a version of you stay prisoner of HYDRA, Buck. Of course I saved you.”

For a moment, Bucky thinks he’s going to be sick. While Steve saved a Bucky, it wasn’t Him. He wasn’t there when he needed him, and now, acts as if it’s okay, just because a version of him was saved. 

Another version of him presumably got to grow old around Steve. 

He knows it's petty, it's stupid, but jealousy and anger, hurt swell within him. Bucky jerks his hand out of Steve’s grasp. “And how do I feel about you, punk? You’re like a little brother to me. Nothing but a pain in the ass. Always have been. Always will.”

“Buck-“ Steve starts, but he knows that peacekeeper tone.

He’s shaking, when did he start shaking? “Look, I didn’t say a damn thing about you leaving so you sure as hell don’t get to come back here with assumptions about how I feel about you, old man.” He spits, and Steve’s eyes widen. “I don’t give a shit if your alternate reality bestie and wife thought something more of our friendship. I’m the one from your timeline so I’m the one who’s opinion counts, Rogers. Not theirs.”

Bucky stands quickly. He’s already losing his cool. Fuck, he should have just flown off with the Guardians. 

“Bucky, please-“ 

“Look, none of this has been easy, okay? Maybe I’d like to relive my life. Go back to 1945, and start over. But these were the cards I was dealt, and this is the hand I’m gonna play.” He rakes a hand through his hair, and can feel tears hot against the back of his eyelids. He wills himself stoic, trying to maintain that calm and collected purposefulness of the Winter Soldier, able to get through any mission. “This is just what I gotta do Stevie. I’m happy for you. Seriously. I am. But this is gonna take some getting used to.”

He turns back, and his face almost falls. Steve looks almost frail, his age catching up to him. He looks so upset that Bucky has to leave, now. 

“Just call me tomorrow. If you’re staying here. Just right now, I’m tired.” He moves to take a step away. Steve sort of reaches for him, and then let’s his hand fall away dejectedly. 

“It’s good to have you back.” For the first time, he lies. 

Quickly, he walks away on the lakeside path, away from Bruce, from Sam, from Steve. The path turns into a blur as he makes his way down it, tears falling before he’s ten feet down it.

Of all the things he'd ever imagined as the end, this was never one of them.


End file.
